Let the government know what you think
The Welsh Government is making some radical changes to the management of the environment including the merger of the Countryside Council for Wales, Forestry Commission and Environment Agency. These proposals will have far reaching and long lasting implications for the way in which local communities can engage in woodland management. The Board therefore urge all members to respond to the two consultations. This can be done in several ways:
- submit response to the two consultations on your own behalf and that of your group;
- attend a meeting on your own behalf
- contribute to the Llais y Goedwig response on behalf of all community woodland groups by joining in our blog
- attend a meeting to represent Llais y Goedwig.
To help you with this we are considering preparing a briefing document on the consultations highlighting issues relevant to community woodland groups – watch this space!
Here are links to the wales.gov.uk pages from which you can download the consultation documents along with some responses to earlier stages of the process by Llais y Goedwig.
Sustaining a Living Wales
Government plans to implement a new framework for environmental management in Wales. Closing date 31 May 2012.
Llais y Goedwig response to Public consultation on initial ideas (January 2011) LlyG & Living Wales
Paper presented to 3rd Sector Compact meeting with John Griffiths, Minister for Environment & Sustainable Development 31 Oct 2011 Communities and Living Wales
Natural Resources Wales
Plans to create a new single environment body to deliver a Living Wales from the Countryside Council for Wales, Forestry Commission and Environment Agency. Closing date 2 May 2012.
Click to download consultation documents also to submit a response
Briefing paper for LlyG’s response to this consultation DRAFT LlyG SEB response v2
Final LlyG response to consultation LLyG SEB consultation response
Llais y Goedwig response to the Environment and Sustainability Committee enquiry into the Business Case for the single environment body RS120094 SEB Stakeholder Questionnaire – LlyG response.pdf
Evelyn Over reported back from the CONFOR and the Wales Forest Business Partnership public briefing on these two consultations in Newtown on the 9th Feb. She says: “CONFOR held an interesting meeting in Newtown and the emphasis was not old issues but making the opportunities put to us by WAG and that politicians want to hear how we/our organisations can help them carry out the Welsh Woodland Strategy and other WAG strategies. This is what was the message is and hopefully civil servants will listen to it.
The emphasis was definitely on the economic aspects of forestry (as you would expect) and hence the briefing paper. I think it could be very useful (if there was time) for members of Llais y Goedwig to have someone go through all the questions on the consultation just to provide a trigger as the questions are quite difficult for people not used to answering consultations. I found today very useful for filling in the consultation and it did make me more confident at filling in the questionnaire. I think Llais y Goedwig members need to know their views are more likely to be heard if they can fill in the questionnaire.”
The CONFOR/WFBP briefing paper can be downloaded from http://www.confor.org.uk/InYourRegion/Default.aspx?pid=15
Thanks for the advice Evie – very belated but we now have a briefing document!